Anti-Choice Billboards Arrive in Ireland

Ireland isn’t by any means a hotbed of anti-choice activity, because usually there isn’t much reason: The mostly Catholic country has the most restrictive laws in Europe, and the majority of women who need to terminate a pregnancy simply travel to England.

But the laws may be reviewed due to the controversial case of a woman who could not obtain an abortion under health-threatening circumstances, and anti-choice activists are starting their own public relations campaign to stop that from happening.

If you haven’t seen the new anti-abortion posters here, don’t worry, over the next six weeks they are coming to a billboard, a bus, a tram, or a train station near you. Especially if you are in Fine Gael, or Enda Kenny himself. The text used in the campaign, rendered in black, white and red, is simple: “Abortion Tears Her Life Apart” on the top of the poster, and “There is Always a Better Answer”, accompanied by the Youth Defence logo in the bottom right-hand corner.This much stays the same. The photographs are either a view of a young woman’s face, with the photograph ostensibly torn in two; or of a foetus in the womb – there are two versions of this, with both photographs torn in two. And that is it, really.

The billboards don’t actually explain what the “better answer” is when it comes to having an abortion or dying of cancer.